The Art of Breathing
by ACtravels
Summary: Mary: angry, emotional, a degree of contempt for Sirius Black, family issues, a rather large secret, dying. Everything's just that little bit more intense when you have a time limit. Completed version on HPFF. Beta'd by AccioHPFF, MangagGirl & Snapdragons
1. Forgotten

My father used to say that my mother was beautiful, but I remember her to be plain: brown hair and blue eyes – perfectly average looking. There were no prominent characteristics or anything that truly made her extraordinary – not even a particularly large nose, or protruding ears. Her entire face was constructed of averages, of being _just_-well proportioned and nothing, nothing at all, that would make you look twice.

He used to say that she was wonderful, amazing, perfect... but she wasn't. She was just an average person; an average run-of-the-mill wife and mother. That was, until she died. Then all his memories twisted her into something she wasn't. Then all of a sudden she was _stunning_ and _wonderful,_ and he would stare into the fire and come out with some romantic mush I'd never believe.

He never used to think that she was special when she was alive. It was always yell, yell, yell, argue, argue, argue when I was growing up. A never ending cycle of arguing, making up and arguing again; biting words, sarcasm and swearwords muffled by closed doors. Sometimes my little brother and I would sit the other side of the door, straining to hear snatches of something that could help us to understand _why they argued so much_. Eventually, I found out.

They did _always_ make-up, probably because they knew their time was running out. Running out, and fast. They never let the sun set on an argument but the snatches of domestic bliss never lasted. That was just the way things were. I didn't know that most families weren't like that; I just knew that I hated it. I can blame it on _stress_ and _pressure_ and _loss_ now, but back then I thought it was because they hated each other.

I was a daddy's girl, in those days. I hated the arguments, so I played-up – every child's natural fallback – which only made them argue more. I didn't understand, but now I do. Now I understand perfectly.

My life tends to steer around clarity, rather than getting to a point where I can begin to understand. I usually feel like I'm standing on the wrong side of the glass, trying to make sense of it all, yet never seeing the full picture. I suppose that's what life is, a glance of the present, and the future obscured from view - just out of reach. You never understand the context until it is too late.

I found out when I was nine. I had been looking for my Christmas presents - I was never one to abide by rules - and I found a letter from my Aunty May. I was a bright child, and I soon worked out what no one had bothered to tell me. Mummy was dying. And then I knew.

I was so angry that they hadn't told me, that they'd hidden it from me. I yelled at them, screamed, threw a tantrum and didn't talk to my dad for a whole week (and, being the daddy's girl that I was – a week was a very long time).

I didn't talk to my mum for much longer than that, simply because although mummy and daddy always made up, me and mummy didn't.

That Christmas eve she died. Before I had the chance to forgive her, she was gone, just like that.

I didn't cry at the funeral. I was in shock. I had thought that she would die slowly; in a few months, years even, but no. One morning I woke up and she didn't. She was gone. She couldn't come back, not for me, not for anyone, even though I begged her too in my head... screaming at her for just a few more hours so I could talk to her _one last time_.  
>But she was well past the point of no return when the grief set in.<p>

Slowly, everyone forgot about her. They employed someone else in her job at the restaurant. Dad got re-married and even Johnny, my little brother, calls our new step-mother, mum now.  
>She was average. She was never special.<p>

My mother was inescapably average: average looks; average job; average personality and an average death. That's why everyone forgot her - averageness. Anyone can be average, and anyone can replace _average_.

That's what I'm most scared of; slipping away in the night before making an impact on the world. I'm scared that no one will remember me when I'm gone.

I'm scared that I'll just be average.

Average life, average looks, average death, just like my mother.

That's why I dyed my hair, not to annoy Karen like Dad thinks (that's simply an added bonus), but so that I stand out, so that I look different. Purple hair isn't average. I know it isn't much – it's verging on pathetic – but that purple hair dye is my last chance.

My time in this world is running out and I want it to be, _no_, I need it to be more than average.

One thing's for sure. I _won't_ be forgotten.


	2. Average

"We'll have less of that attitude," My dad said sitting down opposite me, pulling out the newspaper and beginning to read it while munching on his toast. How bloody muggle, then again he was shockingly muggle so after all these years_ that_ was hardly a surprise.

"I haven't got an attitude _father,_" I said folding my arms over my chest and offering him an exaggerated frown, "I just don't see why _she_ has to experiment with _my_ breakfast," I protested giving a pointed look to where Karen sat in all her evil-step-mother glory. She looked down to the floor sheepishly before meeting my gaze again.

"Look, I'm sorry..." Karen began with her stupid red hair hanging round her shoulders (red hair may be pretty, but it's mutation – so _screw you_ Karen).

"You could have just told me that my breakfast was ready, instead of waiting till it was cold, so you could try out some stupid new re-heating setting out on your toaster which doesn't even work!"

"Does it really matter if your pancakes are a bit burnt?" Dad said sighing.

"A bit burnt?" I said, holding up the offending article. I understand that in the past I have been prone to melodramatics, and this may have been considered as one of these occasions – but I honestly didn't even realise scotch pancakes were capable of turning that colour until coming downstairs and watching Karen anxiously trying to butter the 'pancake'. I was tempted to start trying to sketch with it, it looked so akin to bloody charcoal, "It's darker than the flaming Black family."

"Who?" Johnny asked. I scowled at him. What's the point of having a nice conversation filled with extraordinarily witty comments (Lily would have laughed) when none of them even understood what I was talking about? This was one of the many reasons why I detested the summer holidays and any point when I had to be here, in my 'home' – yeah, right.

"Well, why don't you just ask Karen to make you some more pancakes?" Dad suggested, forever trying, and failing, to be the peace maker. To be brutally honest, I didn't want peace with the bunch of loons around the breakfast table. Otherwise known as... _My family._

Well, Karen is not my family. We're not related. I share none of her mutated ginger or the 'burning pancake' genes. Thank Merlin.

"Well, I would, but there's none left," I said moodily. Mostly, I just liked making arguments.

"Well why don't you have some toast?" Dad suggested, looking up over his newspaper and giving me the classic warning signs. We all knew that this argument wasn't about pancakes or toasters, this was about the fact that I hated Karen's guts, the new baby and everything about being forced into this 'household' when all I wanted to do was run off back to Hogwarts and pretend I had a nice normal _conventional _family. Which I was fully planning on doing, in a couple of hours' time.

"BECAUSE I DON'T LIKE TOAST!" I exclaimed angrily standing up from the dinner table. "Guess I'll just have to _starve_!"

"Stop being a drama queen!" Dad yelled after me as I stormed up the stairs and sat down angrily on my bed. Karen couldn't stand mess and therefore I could barely avoid the mess to throw myself on my bed and sulk like the fantastically mature sixteen year old that I am.

Today I was leaving this mess until Christmas; I was free from this house for a whole four months. Naturally I was only trading in messes as my whole life was a great big _frustrating _mess that nobody could fix.

"Hey sis," Johnny's voice came from the door and I grinned at him automatically, "Do you have to be such a pain?"

"I'll miss you," I said pulling him into a hug and messing up his hair, "and I know you'll miss me too," I said as he tried to push me off him.

"Yeah," He admitted looking up at me. "I guess I will, nutter," He said giving me a proper hug, "but I won't miss the stupid yelling!" Johnny said, his face screwing up for a moment. It was strange to think that this eleven year old was the same kid who used to eat chess pieces and even stranger to come back after each term and find that he'd grown up a little more. I would miss Johnny, especially as I'd been hoping he'd be coming to Hogwarts this year – even if that hope had been gloriously unfounded.

"How's the girlfriend?" I asked grinning.

"Shut up! She's not my girlfriend!" He said defensively.

"Awww, why not? Doesn't she fancy you?" I asked and he scowled.

"I hate you." He said and I laughed.

"You love me really little bro!"

"I'm not little!" He objected, and I snorted, "Just because you're jealous that I don't have to go back to school for another week!"

"Yeah, but I get to do magic, and you get to do science, so..." I began but then I heard voices in my dad's bedroom, and I quickly pulled him over to the door and we both put our ears to it. I turned to look at him – I know he didn't remember the days when we used to do this all the time (albeit listening to a different pair of voices) but I most definitely did.

"It can't have been easier for her, with Becky and..."

"I swear most teenagers aren't this difficult!" I heard dad say and Johnny smirked. We both knew he was talking about me. "Why does she have to _still _make things so hard!"

"Yeah sis..." Johnny said and I punched him lightly to shut him up. "OW!" He said loudly.

"Shush!" I said and listened more intently.

"She's going through a difficult age," Karen said and I clenched my fists. How dare she insinuate that I'm the one with the problem? Pfft! It's all her fault, storming into my life and expecting me to deal with it like nothing had changed!

"But is she ever going to grow out of it?" Dad asked, "I swear I'll almost be glad when she's gone," He said and I took a sharp breath, "Till Christmas I mean," he explained hurriedly but the damage had been done.

"See, no one wants you here!" Johnny said clutching his side where I'd punched him. "We all can't wait till you're gone!"

"Shut up!" I said angrily.

"No," He said, "you punched me,"

"And I'll do it again!" I said demonstrating my point.

"OWW!" He said angrily. "DAD!" He said and I jumped on him, in an attempt to shut him up.

"Mary! Leave your brother alone!" Dad's voice said sounding angry.

"That's right, blame me!" I said angrily. "Precious Johnny could never do anything wrong obviously!"

"Your brother is only ten!" He reprimanded me.

"I KNOW!" I pointed out (loudly), "and I'm _sixteen_!" I said and he winced at hearing my age, "and we all know you can't wait till I clear off, so why don't you take _stupid Karen_ and _ickle Johnny_ and _beautiful baby Ria_ and get lost!" I said angrily turning around and storming into my room, slamming the door shut.

"GO TO YOUR ROOM!" Dad screamed – reflex. I opened the door and stuck my head out.

"I'M IN MY ROOM!"

"We need to go," Karen pointed out and dad sighed angrily.

"Get your stuff Mary, we need to go."

God, those words couldn't have come soon enough.

INSERT PAGEBREAK HERE.

"Bye dad," I said stiffly giving him an awkward hug. "Bye Johnny," I said giving him a warmer one; I would miss him even if he was as annoying as hell. Siblings continually brought out the worst in you, it was a fact of life, but sometimes it was nice.

"And?" Dad prompted.

"Bye Becky, bye Ria – the members of my family who don't love me enough to be here," I added with an eye roll.

"Give Karen a hug," Dad ordered stiffly, and I grimaced and hugged her briefly before escaping is quickly as I possibly could, turning my back on them and walking towards the train lugging my trunk behind me.

The feeling of leaving your excuse of a family behind for a whole year is surprisingly not as liberating as you'd expect - a small spasm of sadness went through me but I didn't look back (I wouldn't give dad the satisfaction – he _wanted _me gone, after all).

"MARY! Where have you been?" I heard Lily shriek and I grimaced at the sound of my name. It was so average, so boring, so easily slipped into the background. So typical of my mother, of course. Karen's baby had naturally been blessed with an exciting, exotic pretty name (of my own choosing, actually) but no... My darling mother had named her children _Mary and John_.

For a second I was surprised that Lily hadn't commented on my hair (because Merlin knows dad had...) before I realised I had donned a hat to prevent a scene. But after my rubbishy morning, I wanted nothing more than a big scene now. God, all I wanted was to generate a bit of shock for once.

"I missed you!" Lily said, throwing her arms around me. I doubted it very much.

She was very much supposed to be my best friend and for most intents and purposes she was, except it is hard to maintain a close friendship when there is one very large and important lie wedging itself between you. Being a lie, Lily wasn't entirely aware of the fact that it existed – but as long as it remained that way I was safe from just blurting it out a random moment when she tried to coerce me into the big reveal.

I winced as she squeezed just a little too tight and the fear of my whole body just shutting down came over me but it didn't, not yet, the doctors said I should have a fair bit of time left unless I was unlucky. And I had been lucky so far. Well as 'lucky' as someone who'd been slowly dying since they were three can be.

"So what's new?" Lily asked after releasing me. I smiled ready to unleash my hair. In my head this had been a scene of great drama and exclamations, and Lily was usually good with that sort of thing (mostly when James Potter was involved). I pulled off my hat and my hair fell around my shoulders in all its purple glory.

There is nothing that a packet of punk hair dye cannot achieve, as long as you disregard that added side effect (or advantage, if you're trying to piss off your evil step mother) of turning all the white towels a rather lovely shade of lilac.

Lily blinked at me for a very long few seconds, as if not entirely sure what she should say. "It's very... _purple_," She eventually settled on, staring at my hairline looking slightly alarmed.

_"_Nice observation Lily, it's good to know your eyeballs are still functioning_,"_

"Why did you dye your hair _purple_?"

"Because it's unusual," I said placing my hand on my hip and fighting the desire to go run away. As my supposed best friend I had expected something a little more similar to support and if this was the reaction from her, I could only imagine how –say- the Marauders would react...

"You can say that again!" James Potter said, appearing on the scene with one of his hands already fluffing up his own stupid hair (and his was an 'unusual' style if ever I saw one – so he could _hardly_ talk). He glanced at Lily for a second, before turning back to me.

"Because it's unusual," I repeated, my gaze passing over all the Marauders, who had come to point at my hair and laugh. Mentally, I'd expected less of the smirking and more of the 'oh Mary you're so gutsy for dying your hair bright purple!' but if I'd been a little more realistic this did seem about right.

"You can say that again!" Remus Lupin put in smirking, and the other's lips all twisted upwards in the same manner. I crossed my arms again and bit my lip. How much of this was I going to have to endure this year?

"I could, but I'm not a parrot," I said stubbornly.

"Well, you look like one!" Sirius Black commented and they all laughed. I ignored him and his bunch of loons, what idiots (what beautiful, annoying, arrogant idiots).

"Isn't that against the school rules?" Lily asked carefully, still staring at the point where my forehead turned to hair, "like... against uniform rules or... _something_,"

"Probably, but who cares?" I asked defensively. My great big plan, my last chance, was quickly proving itself to be another terrible idea.

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary where does your garden grow?" Sirius sung, smirking. I decided not to ponder over how he could know a muggle rhyme, because Sirius Black had this habit of doing surprising things just so he could stun people. He liked the attention.

"If I had any choice in the matter, it would be growing up your arse, and I would only be growing thistles, nettles and holly,"

"All bark and no bite," Sirius said, chuckling as he threw his arm around me. I raised my eyebrows at his arm and pushed it off me when he didn't get the hint, "Awww, Mary don't you love me?" He said in a mock baby voice. I narrowed my eyes at him to show him to back off. I wasn't in the mood with him to try out his stupid flirting act this early in the morning (but hey, it seemed like he'd actually learnt my name now).

"No, but I'd _love_ to hurt you right now," I said picking up my trunk and lugging it on to the train, with the other's trailing after me. Well, at least that was one positive change. They were following_ me_.

"Oh, come on Mary, we all know you couldn't do anything remotely violent," He said following me into a compartment. I dumped my trunk and turned around; there was something in his voice that was challenging me.

"Why not?" I asked surveying them all.

"You're too nice," Pete said.

"Too anti-violent," James added.

"Too Mary..." Remus finished and I snorted.

"Too Mary? Which means?" I asked and Sirius pondered this for a moment.

"You're sort of average," He said after a few seconds, and the sentence enraged me, even though I was sure it wasn't meant to be an insult. Still, the irony of him picking that one word was so frustrating that I wanted to scream (and maybe I just would).

"I'm not average," I said slowly, my eyes narrowing dangerously. Sirius watched my expression darken and gave off every impression of enjoying it immensely. Git.

"Oh come on, admit it, you're totally average, I mean you've picked up a few good comebacks over the summer, and dyed your hair, but your still average,"

"No. I'm not."

"Sure," Sirius said shrugging in a whatever-you-say way which made me even angrier.

"I am not," I said darkly. His lips curved up into a smirk that Lucius Malfoy would have been proud of.

"Prove it," Sirius grinned, taking a step into my person space – much too close for my liking – and raising his eyebrows.

That was just so Sirius. He was always looking for something to make things more interesting. In fact, that was the Marauders all over. And by dragging me in to provide me entertainment they were both flattering me with the notion that I could be entertaining to them and annoying me to the point that I wanted to blow their heads off with my wand.

He was still standing that little bit too close and the triumphant smile curving onto his lips was just a little bit too much. So I did the first thing I could think of.

Even though it was really, really stupid.

(I really shouldn't act on impulse).

I kissed him and then, before he had a chance to push me off him, question my sanity and laugh at me (all things that Sirius Black would just _love_ to do, believe me), I aimed with my knee... and then he was sprawled out on the seat of the compartment clutching his parts.

Then I sat down feeling mildly pleased with myself.

Until I looked out of the window and realised we'd just pulled out of the station and I'd lost my chance to drink in the image of my dad waving goodbye, despite everything, and Johnny straining his neck to see which compartment I was. I deflated and bawled my hands up into fists.

Damn Marauders.

"Was that really necessary?" Remus asked looking at Sirius's pathetic form still splayed out on the floor, "his whimpering is distracting me from my reading,"

"He was asking for it," I said glaring at him, "and shouldn't you be at the prefect's meeting?" I asked glancing down at the badge pinned onto his robes.

He swore loudly before running out of the compartment. I stood up after he had left and grabbed my trunk which still sat in the middle of the compartment.

"So this was nice, we should do it again sometime," I said sarcastically pulling my trunk out the compartment, "but for now...places to be, people to see..." I said flicking my purple hair with a wonderful air of drama. Average? Pfft.

INSERT PAGEBREAK HERE.

I pulled my trunk into the toilet and locked the door. I turned around and took a moment to breath with my back against the door. Average. The people here thought I was average (not even just people, the Marauders – my _classmates_). Average means boring. Average means easily forgotten. Nothing _extraordinary_.

I was just Mary; quite quiet, reasonably smart, average looks, average everything. Average.

Everything about my time at Hogwarts had been average. Average grades, average friends, I'd even dated a Marauder for an average amount of time – the only thing extraordinary thing would be that I would die before my time here was over.

I would die and no one would care, they'd forget about me and when they looked back at the photo's they wouldn't know who I was. I'd always just be me; too Mary, too average.

Angry tears burst from my eyes and fell down my face. I hated myself for the fact that I was crying, but there'd already been far too much going on today and we'd only just pulled out of the station. I allowed myself five minutes of pathetic weeping before making use of the train's plentiful supply of toilet roll to mop up my mess of a face.

I pushed my hand through my purple hair and looked at my reflection. My skin looked even paler with the purple hanging around my face in a shiny curtain.

Unavoidably average. But that was the old me. She's dead now, like the new me will soon be. I'm sixteen; today I had four arguments with my family; I kicked my schools most wanted guy where it hurts; I headed off to my wizarding boarding school; revealed my new purple hair and I'm going to die before I'm out of my teens.

That's not average. And if it is, then Merlin help the world.

INSERT PAGEBREAK HERE.


	3. Tough & Powerful

"Oi, you," Black said stepping into the hall with his Marauding mates behind him, his haughty arrogance reeking from every pore. I smiled sweetly in acknowledgement before turning back to Charlotte Jones who was telling me about her summer (basically she had dated her way through all the guys in her village then gone to Spain and done the same thing there; fascinating stuff). Sirius sat down on my other side. I turned my back to him. After years of classes with him, I know full well that he was an attention-junkie.

I'd learnt young not to feed people's addictions.

He tapped me on the shoulder and then I couldn't ignore him because that would be _rude_. "Yes?" I asked pointedly, relishing in the slightly confused expression that graced his face. Naturally, being Sirius, he was so entirely used to people either respecting him or blinking their pretty little eyelashes and giggling. Well, I didn't giggle: when I laughed, I bloody _snorted_.

"You," Sirius said darkly, "are a murderer – you killed my future children."

"Doubtful," I muttered in return.

"I'm sorry?" Sirius asked, narrowing his eyes at me.

"Please, who'd want to have children with you? I'll admit you're not terrible to look at, but arrogance, immaturity and stupidity aren't the most desirable characteristics if you're looking to reproduce. Sure, it could happen by accident – but I don't know anyone who'd risk it," I finished, feeling my face flush with the satisfaction of the insult. It felt good, even though his face remained impassive. He looked at me carefully (still that little bit too close) trying to read my face – as if I had to have some sort of reason to tell him he was a jerk.

"What's happened to you?" Peter asked, also labouring under the delusion that you had to have a reason to insult Sirius Black.

"Enough," I commented dryly, thinking of my Mum, Dad, Karen, the events of the summer and dying. I folded my arms over my chest and looked to Lily, who too was watching me carefully.

"You've changed," Remus said. I smiled at that. It was working, at least. My big plan. My _transformation_.

"And I'm not _average." _

"I didn't mean to offend you!" Sirius said defensively, holding up one of his hands. I snorted again.

"Well, maybe you should try thinking about other people for a change," I said stiffly, looking up at the staff table distractedly. Sirius raised his eyebrows at me, challenging to go onwards (like I said – attention-junkie, even the fact that I was taking the time to insult him was feeding his inflated ego), "I mean... if you realised that you're not actually superior to every man, woman, child in the world – even if you could get it into your thick skull that _one person_ was that little bit more important than you, then maybe you wouldn't 'accidentally' offend people by opening your fat mouth."

"So you'd be that one person, would you?" Sirius asked disdainfully, exchanging an amused look with James.

"Should have known it was too much to ask from a Black," I spat. That was the magic word, because then his eyes were darkening to a more dramatic colour - akin to an approaching storm rather than the usual crisp grey, "You thrive on your superiority complexes."

"I am _not _a Black," Sirius muttered, so low that I could barely hear him. Now that I'd gotten to him I was fully planning on digging my nails in the wound until it hurt. It served him right; I didn't have to be the only one in the world who was hurting.

"Different breed, same species," I returned, flipping my purple hair out of my face and leaning towards him unconsciously, "insulting people? Check. Former mentioned superiority complex? Check. Prejudice? Check..." Sirius looked about he was about to speak for a second, "Slytherins, anyone younger than you, anyone who you think is a little less cool... I mean, if they're not one of your big chummy mates then they're not worth your time of day, right?"

"You don't know anything about me!" He said angrily. I'd gotten him angry, bloody hell – this was marvellous.

"And you don't know anything about me! Or the Slytherins or the people younger than you. Yet it's just fine to use them for your entertainment, right?"

"I know all I need to know about them," He said darkly.

"Then I know all I need to know about you too Sirius Black! You are an arrogant, selfish, big headed..."

"No I'm _not_!" Sirius spat, no longer glancing at his mates to shared amused glances. This time, I'd got to him.

"Whatever you say, _Black," _I said as if this wasn't going down as one of the greatest moments of my life.

"Don't you Black me!" He said angrily, "I am not Black! My own mother hates the fact I'm in Gryffindor so much that-"

"That must have been really hard for you," I said sarcastically.

"Because I'm not like them!" He said interrupting me as speaking as though this was a great revelation that I was supposed to be shocked by. That was what annoyed me, the fact that he thought I _wanted_to hear what he had to say...

"Well you sure act like it," I said underneath his words. His face coloured a little. Internally my lungs were doing the conga in celebration.

"My family _hates_ me," he said, his eyes imploring me to feel sorry for him (puppy eyes? Jesus, he's the limit). I wasn't going to. I was through with that.

"I don't care," I said flatly and his expression faulted. "So everyone brought the sob story before now?" I asked sweetly.

"Wh-" he began.

"You've never done anything to earn my respect and so I'm not giving it to you," I said, turning back to my dinner even though the excitement of this whole little encounter had taken away all my hunger. At last I had some small revenge - I had gotten to him.

"But I'm a Marauder," Sirius began.

"Which is why, Sirius, I'm not going to give you any more attention. For some ridiculous reason, you get enough of that," I turned back to the front, and Lily, tuning into the last few seconds of Dumbledore's speech before it came to a close.

In my head I was still insulting him. _You play pranks on innocent people, break people's hearts and act superior! You disgust me! Sure, you might everything handed to you on a tarnish silver platter, but that doesn't mean everyone in the world has to be impressed by your personal dose of angst. _

"Mary, you're muttering," Lily said, elbowing me in the side and glancing unsurely at that Marauders, "and what is going on?" I shrugged.

"Your best mate's gone psycho, that's what's going on," Sirius muttered, loudly enough for several people to hear him – capturing the attention of a couple of the seventh years. Normally I would have blushed, but this was the all new me; I didn't blush, so I just smiled at them sarcastically and tried to be cool.

Being cool would have been so much easier if I hadn't been wearing the _most _uncomfortable underwear in the world. Karen brought them for me on my sixteenth birthday; they had glittery number sixteen's on that itched like they were full of bullbadox powder.

How _impractical _anyway. It means I can only year them for a year (if I live that long) before I have to get rid of them. She obviously thinks that as my mother is dead I need a female presence in my life to by me underwear.

Well, I don't.

One of the abilities I have mastered in my sixteen and a half years is buying underwear and really, it's not that difficult. Most people can manage it. Some people, like Charlotte, admittedly end up buying pieces of string and wearing them as underwear... but most people get by just fine.

I tried telling this to my dad and he said that as I had brought the same underwear each year (with the respectable age on) since I had hit my teens (I burnt the old pair on my birthday) that he wouldn't believe it when I said I didn't like them. I told them that they were uncomfortable and he just laughed and pointed out they were made by the same company as the last six pairs.

Then we argued. We always argue. Like he and mum used to.

"McDonald...?" James said in a sing song voice, leaning over Sirius to talk to me. I guessed this had more to do with Lily on my other side than me.

"Trying to think, here," I muttered.

"Yeah, but you should probably be trying to eat," He said. I blinked and looked down at the table, noticing the food there for the first time. James smirked and they all exchanged looks at my stupidity. Now they had the upper hand again. It had only take a twenty minute daydream and I was back in the loser's seat.

"Can you believe we have to do team building?" Charlotte Jones, string underwear-wearing extraordinaire, her slightly rounded face pouting slightly. She and her friends Alice and Rachel had sat opposite Lily and I – a rare display of sixth year Gryffindor unity.

"_What_?" I questioned.

"You really did shut off," Remus said with a smile, "we now all have to do team building once a week," He explained from opposite James, "and Physical education," He added and my eyes widened in horror.

"Eww." I muttered, weighing this up in my head. I'd see the kit on my sister enough times to know that this was one of the worst things that could possibly happen to Hogwarts.

"Didn't you read your Hogwarts letter?" Remus asked carefully.

"She was too busy dying her hair ridiculously colours, deciding on which would look the stupidest for when she came back to school," Sirius said sarcastically. I turned to look at him. Usually teasing from Sirius was more or less akin to flirting (oh, stop it! Stop being so_ mean_ Sirius!) but this time I could hear the resentment clouding up his normal easy tone. I had gotten to him and inside he was still smarting from the blow.

"Nope," I said lightly, turning to look at him again, "or I would have settled on your hair colour and have done,"

Sirius narrowed his eyes, invading my personal space again – he was probably trying to add a little drama. Or thought that if he stuck his face close to mine I might get dizzy and faint or something. "You're so funny," he said, "that I forgot to laugh," then he returned to aggressively eating his steak with relish.

"I do try," I said dryly, "so, are we meant to have brought some sort of P.E. kit?" I asked fearing the worst as I addressed my dormates. Lily nodded looking rather sick, "let me guess, _really short_, Lycra shorts?" I asked. Her nod sealed all of our dooms.

"In our house colours," she added, her pretty face twisting into a grimace.

"As in, bright red, tight, short, Lycra shorts." Rachel Moss added shaking her head in disgust.

"And a gold, thin, freezing, T-shirt." Her friend Alice Prewett added.

"Bloody hell." I said disgruntled.

"Agreed," Charlotte said, picking up her glass of pumpkin juice and taking a sip, "ridiculous," she added, setting her glass down and glancing idly at the ceiling.

"Lycra?" Sirius questioned with a smirk.

"Such a prick," I muttered.

"Cheer up," he said grinning, facing Rachel and Alice opposite, "at least you're not in Hufflepuff... and red is _very_flattering,"

"Not on me," Lily said sighing, "Red and gold clash with my hair, ginger hair goes with _nothing,_"

"Lily, you go with everything!" James said immediately, "but you'd definitely go best with me,"

"And so, it begins," Lily said, turning her back on James and talking to Alice across the table – making a point not to acknowledge his presence for the rest of the meal. I watched her with a smile; I liked the familiarity of all of this. It made things seem okay.

"Damn," James muttered, clenching his fist on the table.

"I thought it was a good line," Sirius drawled.

"Very witty," Remus added approvingly.

"Maybe next time?" Peter suggested – the dialogue switching between them as easily as breathing. It was strange; I detested them slightly less whenever I was privy to snippets of private conversations. They were more human, perhaps, when the existed together.

"God I feel rough," Remus muttered, tapping his knuckles on the side of the table.

"This'll help," Sirius said, "second from the left on the staff table,"

"Damn," James said appreciatively, glancing at Lily as if to see some sort of jealous reaction from her. I doubt she'd even heard him speak.

Unwillingly, I glanced towards the front of the Great Hall where the staff table stretched out. It wasn't difficult to know who they were talking about.

"Who _is_ she?" Peter questioned.

"Well, as we're only short of one teaching position, I'm guessing that would be our new defence against the dark arts teacher," I said sarcastically.

"You checking her out too, Mary?" James grinned.

"Or it could be the new physical education teacher," I finished, disregarding James's conversation completely.

Sirius snorted. "Come off it; physical education? It's got to be a man,"

"Sexism? Check."

"Sod off," Sirius said with an eye roll, "Defence, for sure,"

"PE," I retaliated.

"You suggested Defence in the first place," James pointed out.

"She just gets a kick out of disagreeing with me," Sirius said lightly, "and being absurdly wrong as well, apparently,"

"We'll see," I said, folding my arms, "the puddings gone so I suspect Dumbledore will be introducing her as the new PE teacher right now,"

"Shut up and we'll know then," Sirius said, looking at me for a long moment before tearing his eyes back to the front.

"Now you're all filled with enough food and gossip to listen to me for another few minutes, I would like to introduce you to our new head of physical education; Professor Quigley,"

"And the award for the most sexist misinformed brute in Hogwarts goes to... Sirius Black! Would you like to do your acceptance speech now, or later?" Sirius scowled darkly.

"-She will also be doubling as our new defence against the dark arts teacher!"

"The spoke too soon prize goes to... Mary! The purpled hair freak!"

"I still won, you jerk,"

"How did you?" Sirius demanded, "You're wrong!"

"So are you."

"Her fiancé, Mr Peacock is the new Healer in the hospital wing," Dumbledore continued at the front of the hall. My eyes widened slightly and I completed blocked out Sirius's 'witty' retort because this was... big news. Nate was my Healer who'd given my countless checkups in the past and, more than that, after the amount of time I'd spent in hospital we'd become _friends_.

And he was hot.

"Just look at her!" Rachel whispered, "bet her fiancé's tasty," She added with a conspiratory look to Charlotte.

"Or a complete horse," Charlotte returned, "that's usually how it goes,"

"Let's go before the crowd control starts," Alice said, standing up almost as soon as Dumbledore had dismissed us. The Marauders were up even faster and wound up being the first of many to escape through the wide double doors, leaving a disgruntled Lily gaping at her fellow Prefect's back.

"What do I do now?" Lily muttered, wringing her hands and glancing at the group of first years bobbing around amongst the sea of Gryffindors moving towards the exit.

"What's the password again?" Charlotte asked, raising an inquiring eyebrows.

"Yeah, sure – fine. Don't help," Lily muttered, "get the password off someone else, I need to..."

"Don't worry, she told me earlier." Rachel said,

"Bye," I said to Lily helplessly before trying my very best to get as far away as possible so I didn't wind up helping her out.

PAGEBREAK.

Everyone and the Fat Lady had something to say about my hair. Mostly, it wasn't receiving a very positive response – there was a great deal of pointing, that was certain, and a fair amount of people asking the humungously significant why (to which I replied a very insignificant 'cause I felt like it' which hardly got people to warm to me). Either way, I was being talked about by the younger students heading up to bed, yawning and full of Hogwarts food. The older students were hanging around the common room and catching up with their classmates but, I noted, the Marauders were conspicuous only in their absence.

Which meant my only source of entertainment for the evening – bothering Sirius some more – had most likely already gone to bed. Very disappointing on all accounts, it wasn't even ten o'clock and they appeared to have hit the sack (either that or were participating in some Marauder ritual – the group had a nickname, for Christ's sake, they could be doing just about anything).

So now what was I supposed to do? I was sitting with Rachel, Charlotte, Alice and a few girls from the year below who were quite happily gossiping, but I'd lost the thread of the conversation and couldn't bring myself to care about the love lives of a bunch of fifteen years olds. I could go to bed, but I wasn't tired yet, and whenever I went to bed I always got that feeling that I'd wasted a whole day. The feeling had only increased lately as the number of days I had left decreased (although there was a decisive amount of ambiguity about how much time my timescale did have – but I think I'd rather not have a 'death date' scribbled in my diary somewhere. Could put a real dampener on some of my plans).

I couldn't do any work considering we hadn't started any yet. Due to the abysmal summer holiday I'd actually done all my holiday work and getting ahead seemed a little too pathetic. I could unpack, but where was the fun in that?

Or I could go and visit Nate in the hospital wing, which got two things done at once; I could have my check-up, and see an old friend. Perfect.

I turned around and headed back towards the portrait wondering whether I could sneak out without too many people's attention, but the portrait had just opened once more to reveal a swarm of tiny eleven year old first years, bursting through the portrait hole and seeping into the common room with excessive 'oohs' and 'ahhs' which generally indicated they'd all be milling around 'exploring' for a good twenty minutes. It also meant the arrival of Lily, the flustered chaperone.

"Boys, up those stairs, second floor on the left. Girls up those staircases, second floor on the right,"

"Where does it go, ginger?" A really short kid asked pointed to this girl who had an unfortunate resemblance to someone who might belong to the opposite gender with her short hair and harsh jaw line.

"With the rest of the boys," Lily said tiredly. I winced for her.

"I'm a girl!" She said and Lily groaned.

"Look, I am so sorry!" She apologised quickly, "I didn't mean..." She began, but the girl had already run up the stairs and I had the feeling she was crying. Poor thing. It's never nice to be referred to as the wrong gender on your first day of school, especially not by someone as horrendously pretty as Lily.

The rest of the first years followed suit (apparently losing interest in the common room when there was a crying girl/boy involved) and flooded up the stairs, blocking it to everyone else; stupid annoying midgets.

"Arggh, I am such a failure!" Lily said sinking down onto the sofa. I badly wanted just to run away and go and see Nate, but I felt bad. I'd already left her to go deal with the First years on her own (although that was fully Remus's fault, rather than mine) and that didn't seem to have gone too well.

"You're... not a failure?" I suggested, slumping down next to her and sort of tapping her arm. Lily wrung her hands again before shaking her head and beginning what was sure to be a very long list of complaints.

"All the little children hated me, and I had absolutely no control over them! And Remus disappeared somewhere, so I was all on my own and I couldn't do it. My sister won't even talk to me! And then I saw... Severus earlier and I just..." And then she brought her hand up to her face and sniffed loudly, "oh, God Mary!" Lily exclaimed, "this is just... the worst September first _eve_r."

"I cannot believe you kicked Sirius Black in the crotch," Rachel said excitedly, I rolled my eyes at the ceiling for a second and contemplated what I could say in response, "what was it like?" she added.

"I thought you had a crush on him," Charlotte said bluntly, lying on her front as she painted her nails and looked up at me, assessing me slightly.  
>"Erm, no," I said, staring hard at the floor for a few long moments before glancing back up. Instead of visiting Nate I'd been cohered into retelling the fateful story, as one of the fifth years had mentioned it to them and now they were just desperate to know.<p>

"Yeah you did!" Rachel said, "I remember,"

"No." I answered simply.

"You did! Because I remember when he..."

"That was last year!" I said feeling annoyed. Lily laughed and Alice sent me a small smile. It was midnight and I just wanted them to all fall asleep so I could go and see Nate, but Charlotte was still expertly painting her nails and Rachel wasn't even in her pyjamas.

"Didn't he like snog you in a broom cupboard at some party?" Charlotte suggested, an expert smirk already arranged on her features as I sighed irritably.

"That's right! And then the next day he got your name wrong!" Rachel added.

"That wasn't me," I said with gritted teeth.

"It was!" Charlotte said and I groaned, pulling my pillow over my head. "He called you Amanda!"

"In fairness, Amanda is pretty similar to Mary,"

"No it damn well isn't!" I said angrily. "Now all of you shut up, I need some sleep."

"Fine," Rachel said, rolling off her bead and grabbing her pyjamas, "but you're finishing telling the story tomorrow,"

"There is no story!" I called after her as she disappeared into the bathroom. Charlotte carefully screwed the lid back on her nail varnish and stretched them out before looking back up at me.

"With Sirius there's always a story," Charlotte said, "night," She added, pulling back her curtains with a fabulous degree of finality. Charlotte always did posses the power to be _dramatic_.

"Hey _Nate_," I said, stepping into the Hospital wing and grinning at him. He looked up from one of the beds and grinned at me, feigning shock as he registered my presence, "why didn't you tell me you were coming to work here?" I asked; hand on hip as I watched him. Nate had been more of glorified nurse than a Healer when I'd met him and after a couple of weeks of simply taking blood test we'd ended up talking. Years later, we'd become penpals, developed a sort of sister-brother relationship (not that I didn't have enough siblings for a lifetime) and he'd wound up better qualified and a specialist in, well, essentially _me_.

"Wanted it to be a surprise, but I guess the jokes on me. It's nearly the morning, Mary, what the hell are you doing out of bed?" He was right. My plans of a late night visit were ruined by my weak body, but I'd woken up around five and snuck downstairs – doubting even if Nate would be awake. The light streaming in from between the Hospital wing blinds meant that I could just see a few lumpy shapes in the beds on the far corner. Already, it seemed, Nate had patients.

"Long story," I said brushing it away, "I meant to come earlier, but my dorm-mates put me to sleep...But this is so great! Writing letters is such a drag," I said, sitting down on one of the spare beds and looking up at him, "how come you're here?" I asked, "why would you come to Hogwarts?"

"What do you think?" Nate asked, rolling his eyes, "I followed you. As you're essentially my own patient, I might as well be _usefu_l to you. So, how are you Maz?" He asked and I grinned at the nickname; one embarrassingly out of date Healer's attempt to 'connect with me.'

"Just great Naz," I said unable to pull the grin off my face. For the first time since being her I was about to have a friend at Hogwarts who knew the truth about my situation. It would be nice.

"Maz?" I heard a voice that I could only hope not to recognise. "Are you being serious?" He said, and then I couldn't try and convince myself this was just a nightmare. I'd heard that voice often enough in the past twenty four hours to be acutely aware of who it belonged to.

"Nope, you're Sirius," Nate said a smile playing on his lips – I suppose given he'd just met him he hadn't tired of the pun yet, but I could Sirius was mentally grinding his teeth, "so you two know each other then?" He asked.

"Unfortunately," Sirius said, beating me to it.

"What are you doing here?" I asked and he pointed to the bed next to him. I strained my neck and was just about able to recognise a pale looking Remus and blanched when I received a glimpse of how truly ill he looked. Then again, Sirius didn't look as wonderful as he usually did.

"What... what happened?" I asked shakily, stretching my neck to take another look.

"Keep your nose out of it," Sirius said, shifting around in his own bed and stretching out his arms.

"So you're just keeping him company?" I asked.

"McDonald, just because you're not a nice person doesn't mean we're all terminally selfish." I tried not to wince at the world 'terminal.' Nate, however, was acutely aware of the implications of the word and shifted uncomfortable.

"Will he be all right?"

"Ask the Doctor," Sirius said, folding his arms and shifting his pillows.

"Whilst you're here Mary, I'll take your blood test," Nate said, disappearing into the supply cupboard and immerging slightly later with a couple of potions and a needle.

"Why do you need a blood test?" Sirius asked.

"Keep your nose out of it," I retorted sharply, looking away from Nate. Blood tests were horrible things even without watching it happen, but Sirius didn't look away. I sent him a look.

"I'm waiting," Sirius said, "What's with the blood test?"

"I have a weird blood condition so I have a blood test taken every week to see how it's affecting me for research." I answered. Nate raised his eyebrows at me, quite clearly disapproving of the lie, before taking the sample back into his office and doing god know's what with it.

It is not really a blood condition. It is simply a condition that makes my body deteriorate at a very fast rate without many obvious outward symptoms. Every single body dies eventually; mine is just simply dying faster than everyone else's. Whereas it takes most people eighty years before they are weak and vulnerable, older for most wizarding folk, it will take me less than twenty years before I can no longer liver. It is still not fast: one single cell at a time. But inevitably, I will die. And there is nothing that anyone can do about.

And Nate? He doesn't agree with lying. He doesn't understand that the only way not to be dying is to lie and that even if I wanted to; I couldn't tell him the truth. I wouldn't be able to break the secret after such a long period of time. How do you tell someone that you're dying? My mother, for example, never did.

I can reserve my right to a confession when I am ready.

And although, I'd really like to see Sirius's face when he found out; he probably wouldn't believe me if I dropped the big 'D' bombshell on him as an answer to a simple question. _Because I'm dying Sirius, and do you think I'm average now?_

Except if I don't tell everyone then once again my life will be on repeat. The roles will have reversed but the story will be the same; I will be the dying parent, and Lily will be me – confused and hurt because I never told her about _death_.

I wouldn't let that happen. I'd tell them all before I died.

But then, I should be dead already, what if it happened tomorrow?

"You should go back to bed Mary, lord knows you need your sleep," Nate said, glancing as the sky turned bluer, "I'm here all year, so... plenty of time.

"Okay," I muttered, seeing Sirius's eyes bore into me from the other side of the room. I stared at him for a long moment and thought about things.

Everyone needs someone in their life to make them feel like shit so they don't get big-headed and arrogant.

I've had plenty of those people in my lives, so I was good in that department. But Sirius Black? You could feel the arrogance radiating off him from several miles away and after yesterdays wonderful successes, I was going to do him the great favour of becoming _that_person. I'd make him feel like shit and I'd make him lose faith in humanity. Sure, there wasn't much chance of reducing his ego to normality, but there was a small chance that with my newfound powers to get to him I could turn him into less of an egotistical tosser. I would consider it my gift to humanity. It was possibly one little area where I could make a difference; because I, Mary McDonald, am tough and powerful.

Or at least, I will be.

_**2012 edit, beta'd by the lovely Snapdragons.**_

_**Completed story: .?psid=260019**_


	4. Fed up

It had been a stupid idea to wake up early with the intention of looking nice for the first day back at school, because now I was propping myself up with my elbow and blinking repeatedly to try and stay awake.

An hour earlier than necessary, I'd dragged my sorry body out of bed and stumbled into the shower. I could have had _a whole hour_ extra in bed; sure, my hair may not have been as clean, my eyelashes not as long, my foundation not as perfect and such things, but who cared? Really, when weighed up against sleep my appearance should have had little pull. I guess it was a mark of how vain I was. Alternatively, how stupid I was because the second I looked in the mirror it became apparent that it was going to make no real difference due to the big bags under my eyes and the fact that they were watering slightly from sheer levels of fatigue. Oh, the woes of a teenager.

I used to be able to go to sleep around four and get up at six. I guess I'm weaker now.

"Sleepy?" James muttered, although he could hardy talk due to the fact that his whole face seemed to be drooping somewhat with tiredness. I couldn't even be bothered to tell him that.

"Uhuh." I mumbled, forcing myself to eat more toast but finding it difficult to use up my little remaining energy on something like toast. Whilst toast was actually my preferred breakfast choice and I actually only had an aversion to the stuff when annoying-Karen was involved (I never claimed to be a nice person), it seemed to be one of those morning when eating didn't seem like a particularly efficient way to energise.

"Well, you shouldn't have visited your little boyfriend then." Sirius said. The result of this statement was sure to be attractive – chocking on my toast and laughing (with added snort).

"Boyfriend? Did you miss when he was introduced as Professor Quigley's fiancé?"

"You don't seem the type to be bothered," Sirius said idly, "who am I to judge?"

"Precisely," I muttered, "who are you to make stupid assumptions? He's my friend."

"Well," Sirius continued, not looking tired at all, "how come you didn't recognise his fiancé then? If you're such good friends?"

I had no answer to that. Maybe, to me, Nate was my friend – but, in reality I was just one of his patients that he was relatively fond of. Of course I'd never met his fiancé. Heard about her, yes.

"See, I thought so." Sirius said triumphantly, flicking a flake of cereal at me to visually demonstrate his victory. Prat.

"Well don't push yourself to hard," I muttered. "Thinking is a big step, don't push yourself too hard this first time. You want to stagger it."

"Are you implying I'm stupid?" He asked, his face flushing slightly.

"Implying? Sorry, was I not clear enough – I meant to call you stupid outright."

"What's your problem McDonald?" He asked. "Cause my patience is beginning to run out."

"Good," I spat out, "and I'm not the one with the problem."

"Right," Sirius scoffed, turning around to look at his friend for support. "Let me know when you've decided to stop being irritating."

"This isn't about me!" I spat angrily. "My problem, I'm being irritating – God, Black, take responsibility for your own crap. I'm fed up of having people like you walking around like you're better than me. It's never about me,_right_? It's about you with your cocky swagger and your charm and your bloody superiority. You're not getting away with it anymore. You're not that hot."

"You can hardly talk!" Sirius returned. "Just because you've decided you don't want to be yourself anymore – a nice normal person – and have gone through some stupid re-vamp and are just expecting everyone to accept it. Your hair looks ridiculous."

"I _know_ it looks ridiculous!" I snapped back. "And you should know that isn't a bearing on your opinion, but it's actually what I _intended_."

James elbowed Sirius, causing both of us to look up and see McGonagall distributing the timetables. Sirius fell silent, sending me a calculated look before ignoring me in favour of talking to Peter.

My timetable was dropped in front of me and I scrambled to pick it up, wondering what tortures I would have to suffer through today. I traced my finger down Wednesday's column and felt my heart sink slightly.

_Double potions, P.E., Muggle studies, Team building, Double Transfiguration._

The rest of the timetable seemed almost as bad and the only good thing seemed to be that this was only a three day week, or else it seemed prudent to speed up the process of dying and jumping in the Black Lake.

Okay, maybe that was a _tad_ melodramatic. But with Sirius around clouding every corner and continually making me more and more angry it seemed like this year was going to be really difficult.

"Let's see," Lily said and leant over my shoulder to see my timetable.

"I want to see!" Charlotte said pulling the parchment out of my hands. Rachel and Lily gathered around too. I hadn't thought that any of them would be interested enough in something to do with my life that they'd actually want to see it, but I wasn't going to complain (well, I probably was – but that could be saved till later).

"Could I have a look?" Alice asked me and I rolled my eyes.

"Don't bother being polite, just grab it while you can, it'll be ripped to shreds in a minute." I said and she offered me a shy smile before joining the huddle.

"Something interesting?" Sirius questioned.

"A picture of one of us, perhaps?" James questioned from the other side of the table.

"Probably," Sirius confirmed, plucking the piece of parchment of Charlotte's hand and holding it above their reach – damn summer growth spurts, they were all taller than us now, "timetable," Sirius told James, "not half as interesting."

"Ah, well." James shrugged as Sirius screwed the timetable up and threw it over his shoulder.

"Hey," I said angrily, grabbing hold of his robes and forcing him to look at me, "pick that up."

"Sorry, was that your timetable?" He asked, retrieving it from the ground and smiling at me, "I do apologise," he added, before he began to rip up the timetable. I stood there, glaring at him and silently fuming. Sirius grinned and then actually went as far as _eating_ a piece. That was beyond the scope of a quick reparo charm and therefore beyond the scope of my patience.

"What are you doing?" I demanded, reaching up to grab it from him.

"That tastes disgusting," He commented.

"Overkill, mate." James said.

"You might be right."

"Give it back, Black."

Sirius laughed and seemed to take pleasure in dropping the remaining pieces of my timetable into a glass of pumpkin juice. My pumpkin juice.

I was too angry to speak.

Sirius grinned, sending me a little wave before following Charlotte and Rachel out of the Great Hall with James in toe towards...

Crap. What lesson do I have now?

I quickly pulled out the remains of my timetable, to find that the ink had run, and the paper had disintegrated slightly. Needless to say, I couldn't read it.

"Damn you, Black." I muttered at the disintegrated pieces of paper, throwing the hopeless gloop back into the glass and slumping down on the desk.

"So you've _finally_ lost it?" Remus grinned.

"You don't by any chance know what lesson I have next?" I asked, frustrated.

"Sure, I'll walk you there," He said, "double potions," He said and I groaned. He chuckled slightly, "We'll be late if we don't go now."

"And that would be such a tragedy," I said sarcastically. "Hey, can you tell Slughorn that Sirius dissolved my timetable so I couldn't have possibly known I was supposed to be in Potions?"

"Unlikely."

Everyone hated a seating plan. It was the singular sure way for a teacher to ensure that everyone began the first lessons of the year feeling pissed off and irritated: even Lily, who's never one to context one of Slughorn's decisions, doesn't like these things – mostly because James has a rather alarming ability to end up next to her on the plan. Two hours of scheduled annoyed, on top of double potions? No thanks.

"Lily Evans and Severus Snape..." Slughorn continued, I glanced up and caught a pained expression on Lily's face – although Slughorn's tendency to place his two favourites together usually was seen as a good thing by Lily, after the events of last year it seemed like she wasn't so keen...

I glanced around the classroom, weighing up my options. He'd nearly finished the list and the only people who were left over, really, were the Marauders and a couple of girls from other years. It had been boy girl so far (a ridiculous insurance that there would be excessive amounts of flirting) which meant that it was almost definite that I'd be sat next to one of them.

Remus, wouldn't be so bad. I could deal with sitting next to Peter. James would be annoying, but not to the point that I'd purposefully blow up his cauldron... but if they put me with Sirius? Slughorn had better watch out for his dungeon, that's all I'm saying.

"Mary McDonald and...James Potter," He finished and I let out a relieved breath that I hadn't realised I'd been holding. It could be worse. Things could always be worse (although, in my situation you had to admit that things couldn't be much worse).

Sirius Black fell into the seat in front of me but did not turn around.

It was probably for the best.

*

I hated Professor Quigley more than I hated Sirius Black.

Not only had she yelled at me for not having kit, but she had then found me some that didn't fit me on purpose: the shorts would have fit my eleven year old brother snugly, and yet here I was squeezing into them, then the top wouldn't have looked big on one of my sister's fat boyfriends, giving the altogether rather delightful impression that all I was wearing was a very baggy t-shirt. And a bra, because naturally I'd chosen to wear a black bar this morning and naturally the t-shirt was spectacularly see-through. Joy.

"Now that we're all here," She said, giving me a pointed look (well, if she wanted me to be on time, she shouldn't have spent an hour finding me kit) "I'll begin." She finished as I began muttering curses under my breath.

"Not fond of his fiancé then?" Sirius muttered from next to me.

"Shut it." I muttered. Sirius smirked and made an obvious point of taking in my ridiculous kit and how he found it highly amusing.

"Why didn't you ask for kit that fit you?".

"You say one more thing..." I warned, folding my arms.

Sirius grinned, leaning forward until I could feel his breath in my ear. "_Nice bra_."

I wanted to scream but suspected that screaming wouldn't go with the bitch of a woman's program of things, so instead I let my gaze glaze over and began to imagine all the things I'd like to say to Sirius if I ever got the guts.

"You there, with the purple hair, what have I just been saying?" _She_ demanded.

"I don't know." I mumbled, feeling the heat crawl up my face.

"Well maybe next time you don't sit next to your boyfriend." she said pointedly. Sirius stretched his arms out next to me, enjoying as the other Marauders began making a variety of comments about me, my life, my hair.

"He's not... I didn't _want_ to sit there."

"How about your sit right in front of me then, Purple." She clicked her fingers at pointed at her feet. I heard Sirius laughing like an idiot as a stood up and sat at the front, wondering whether I should contest that he should be moved too.

"Right, as I was saying, we're doing the beep test today, and anyone who doesn't get above a seven has to stay behind every lunchtime and repeat the test until they do."

Okay I couldn't actually hate this woman more.

She did the whole clicking and pointing thing again, indicating that we were to line up at the stupid start line she'd drawn on the ground with her wand. After giving us five minutes to 'warm up' (arse around pretending to jog up and down) she brought us all back to the start line.

"Ready,_ go_!" She yelled as the first beep went off. Everyone seemed to misjudge the first beep and ended up there much too early, filling everyone with a sort of confidence. So we were all sure we would get past seven easy.

But come level 5, I had to admit, I was struggling. I couldn't breathe, my legs felt weak and it was seemingly more and more difficult to keep running.

"Come on guys, remember your lunchtimes are at stake!" She yelled. _Run. Run. Run._

"Struggling?" Sirius asked me. He wasn't even out of breath. I blamed Quidditch. I didn't attempt to answer, not that I could of in my state, and focused all my energy on running that little bit further. The prospect of running away from Sirius helped.

I _had_ to get to level 7. I needed my lunch periods to eat, do homework, and go and see Nate. I needed to convince him not to marry this bitch.

"COME ON PURPLE!" She screamed and I realised I was a little behind everyone else, I still couldn't breathe but I forced myself to catch up and turn around.

5.8

My head was starting to go dizzy due to lack of oxygen.

5.9

My legs felt incredibly weak, weaker than ever before.

6.0

My vision began to go blurry.

6.1

My legs collapsed from underneath me and I ended up on the floor. A tad dramatic for the situation, it seemed.

"KEEP GOING!" I heard the devil bitch yell. I'd stopped. I wouldn't be able to get up now. I was probably going to be trampled on by everyone coming in the other direction. But, instead of feeling everyone's feet crushing my skull a pair of hands accompanied by a pair of arms were pulling me up, supporting me.

"Looks like she can't," Sirius said, and I could almost feel the eye roll. I was deposited onto a bench, "still alive?" Sirius questioned.

"Mr Black, carry on right now. You're coming back at lunch," She yelled and I heard footsteps walking away and I took a deep gulp of air, bringing things back in to focus.

"Drink this," She said and I did, it instantly cleared my head more and I could feel my legs again. "What's your name?" She asked her voice changed from super-bitch to nice.

"Mary McDonald," I answered my voice coming out shaky.

"You're the one with the..." She began but I cut her off.

"Blood condition," I said nodding, giving her a meaningful look, the other people in the class was still _way _to close for her to say what I really had.

The woman swore, pressing a hand against her head. "Nathaniel told me to watch out for you, and make sure you didn't push yourself too hard... but, oh, I thought you'd be quiet," She said and I shrugged in response, "are you okay? Do you need to go to the hospital wing? No, well... how about we don't tell Nate I nearly killed you on my first day?" She suggested with a smile. "Don't stop now!" She yelled, turning back to the other runners and screaming at poor Charlotte Jones who was bright red in the face and breathing heavily. She stopped, leaning against the oak tree and trying to catch her breath.

"6.8! You're coming back at lunch!" She yelled. Charlotte looked as if she might cry.

Bloody hell.

When everyone had finally finished, (Sirius and James being the last people out. Remus before that and Peter before that), she gathered everyone around and said a few nice things before returning to full on bitch status. "Okay, coming back at lunchtime, are Charlotte Jones, Alice Prewett and Sirius Black. No arguments."

The collective whispers of '_why not Mary?_' were stifled because everyone was too bloody scared.

"I'm also the brains behind Team Building – no need to thank me," She grinned," I'll be running half of your team building lessons, usually the Friday session. Basically, you're all going to be primarily working in pairs."

Everyone looked scared apart from me. Surely devil woman would put me with someone I wanted? Considering she nearly killed me and I was friends with her fiancé... "I've put you with people who I think you have a good potential relationship with, and that tends to be the last person you'd pick," She finished, "but that's good – it wouldn't be team building if you guys were working with your best friends. So, your pairs for the rest of the year... James Potter and Lily Evans."

"Yes!" James whispered to Sirius, loud enough that everyone heard and Lily sent him a long irritated look.

"Alice Prewett and Frank Longbottom," she continued, neither of them looked too bothered. "Rachel Moss and Peter Pettigrew, Charlotte Jones and Remus Lupin." She said confirming all my worst fears.

I turned around to meet Sirius's gaze, feeling her final words – virtually a prison centre – "Mary McDonald and Sirius Black." She finished.

And we both groaned.

*

"So first, everybody grab a blindfold," Professor Quigley said, and I knew from that moment that this would_not_ be good. "Now, before you put it on you need to think of a call such as hog-warts, in your partners. One of you will yell one bit, and the other one will answer it, and you will try and find each other while blindfolded."

"How about quid-itch?" Sirius asked and I shook my head. "Blud-ger? Siri-us? Team-building?"

"How about arse-hole?" I suggested and his face broke out into a grin.

"Deal." He said shaking my hand. I moved my hand away quickly. I'd already touched him way too much for a lifetime. Not like that. Much.

"I'll yell 'arse', you yell 'hole'," he said and then we sat there in silence until she told us time was up.

Then we had to place on the blindfolds and she moved us away from our partners.

"ARSE!" I yelled trying to pick out Sirius's voice.

"QUID!" I heard among the voices.

"BREAK!"

"CHOCOLATE!"

"HOLE!" I hear someone to my left.

"ARSE!" I yelled again.

"ITCH!"

"FAST"

"BREAK"

"FROGS!"

"HOLE!"

"ARSE!" I yelled again, walking clumsily forward and hearing his voice.

"CHOCOLATE!" a voice yelled again and then, after a while, most of the stopped and I assumed they'd found their partner.

"ARSE!" I yelled and I got no answer.

"Arse," I muttered into the silence of the room, "arse, arse... arse -"

A pair of hands grabbed me around the waist, I screamed bloody murder and Sirius muttered "hole," into my ear. I promptly fell over, repeating my half of the call over and over in his direction as I ripped of the blindfold.

He didn't have his blindfold on. In fact, I was now the only person in the room who seemed to have had a blindfold on.

"Arsehole." I spat viciously, folding my arms.

"Why don't we try following my instructions this time? McDonald, Black – make up a new call. No taking your blindfold off until I say so. We're going to continue doing this over and over until you get it right, so I hope you're all having fun."

"So," I said moodily, "we have to make up a new one."

"I don't think she thought it was appropriate," Sirius commented.

"Butt-head?" I suggested grimly.

Sirius grinned.

*

"I swear you used to be good at transfiguration," Sirius said as I desperately tried to do the correct spell, "in first year you were better at magic than Lily."

"Shut up Sirius." I said darkly poking the hedgehog with my wand.

"And you're saying it perfectly right; it's just as if you haven't got the power..."

"Shut up." I said again, louder this time.

This was all Miss Quigley's fault. She had told all our teachers to seat us with our partners where possible to increase bonds, or something shit like that. I didn't want a bond with Sirius.

"So what's the deal?" Sirius demanded.

"Blood condition."

"You've got a blood condition that affects your ability to do magic?" Sirius questioned.

"It's called being a mudblood." I couldn't have told you which Slytherin said it, but suddenly their side of the room was alive with laughter and comments.

"Detention! I will not have that language in my classroom!" McGonagall snapped, her eyes narrowing dangerously. Her anger matched mine.

"Sorry, what did you just call me?" I demanded.

"I called you a _mudblood_, I saw you with your dirty muggle parents at the station, had an argument with your mum had you?" He said snarling.

"That woman was _not _my mother!" I said angrily. "And not that it matters, but my mother was a witch."

"Where was she, walked out on your little muggle family?"

"No," I said flatly, "my mother is dead."

"Well, serves her right, dirty muggle lover..." He said and suddenly my whole body shook with anger.

I lunged at him; desperately trying to hurt him anyway I could, for insulting my mother. I don't even know why it was such a big deal. I _hated _my mother for passing on this condition, meaning I was going to die.

But I was blind with anger. Not necessarily at him, but at everything. My day had gone _so_ wrong. My life had gone _so _wrong. The doctors constantly said how lucky I was, but I didn't understand how I could be 'lucky.' I was dying, and beginning to see the affects. I'd never get out of my teens, I'd never fall in love, I'd never have a baby, I'd never have a marriage, I'd never get any of the things I'd always so desperately wanted.

And this Slytherin in front of me; he was going to live, he was probably rich, he'd get married, have the choice to have kids, he'd get to live like I'd never be able too, yet here he was insulting me because of my blood. _Pathetic._

As far as I could see, my mother's blood had done me _much_ more damage than my fathers.

I felt hands pulling me back and then I realised how ridiculous the whole thing was; why should I care if he couldn't see past blood? I shouldn't.

Tears burst from my eyes at my anger and stupidity.

There was commotion going on around me, but I ignored it, thoughts whirling round in my head as tears leaked from my eyes.

McGonagall's scream shut everyone up, but I barely heard her handing out detentions and point deductions – hardly registered Sirius's name amongst those who were now sentenced to detention – and James's protests... because I didn't care. I didn't care at all, I was so caught up in the spinning in my head and how angry I'd felt.

I wished my emotions could be the first thing to die.

*  
>"Nice show in there McDonald," Sirius said darkly as he walked to the Gryffindor table and sat down, "thanks to you I'm stuck with McGonagall for the next three evenings." Lily had filled in the missing pieces of the event: how she'd pulled me away from him (good job too, he could have killed me) and how Sirius had taken my place in furiously throwing spells and fists in his direction.<p>

"Actually, that has _nothing _to do with me. I never asked you to attack him."

"You know you're one of the most unappreciative people I have ever met! I've helped you twice today, and I'm still waiting for my thank you."

"Oh nice one Black, you know real humans do nice things for others without needing to be thanks. How was attacking some Slytherin helpful? You're...argh, you're the most conceited person I've ever met. It's all about you. Do you ever think about other people or do you just...?"

Instead of listening to my rant, Sirius was looking over my shoulder. I turned around half expecting to see someone underdressed or something, but instead finding myself face to face with Nate.

He did not look happy.

"Ma..." He began but stopped. He looked as if someone had died.

"What's wrong?" I asked urgently. What if someone one was hurt? What if someone was dead?

"I need to talk to you." He said, but I was still in full fledged panic mode.

"Who's hurt? Is everyone okay? What's happening?" I asked. I was border line hysteric and, at that moment, I probably wouldn't have cared of Nate wanted to tell Sirius or anyone else for that matter all about how I was dying and what not.

"It's your blood test results."

* * *

><p><em>So, I think I've said it before but I'll say it again. This story has been completed for over a year on HPFF and writing wise isn't up to my current standard due to you know, growing up and stuffs. I'm uploading it here as I'm editing so I know where I am, really, and so if I decided to split chapters up then I've got my references point here. So, if you want the completed article just head over to HPFF.<em>


	5. Annoyed

"Come on Mary, it's not so bad," Nate said in an unconvincing tone which did nothing to rectify the anger and shock which had me clenching my fists at my side. His hand resting on my shoulder and the sympathy in his eyes also did nothing to calm me down or set the side of my brain which was usually dedicated to national thought going again.

I had yet to get over my dramatically worsening blood tests that Nate had informed me of on the first day back (there are, actually, plenty of publications and the like dedicated to the _how to get over you're dying _but honestly, they just made me angry). He had since tried a variety of things to make me optimistic about the whole situation, but today I had demanded he showed me my graph.

In the past, he had used my graph on numerous occasions to cheer me up when I was feeling down. He always pulled it out and showed me my line of progress and how far away from dying I really was. It was then I believed I had years left to live, that I had so much ahead of, so much time to live that I hadn't bargained on. It always had a smile plastered back on to my face again.

Now though he was reluctant to pull it out, and I soon saw why when it was presented in front of me. They showed anyone with a pair of eyes quite clearly that I was getting worse with every passing moment. The past, where death was an ambiguous – if less ambiguous than for most – was officially aptly named; that golden age was over.

On my graph there were four lines in different colours: The blue one showed how a normal person's body deteriorates; the red shows the expected worsening of the body for someone with my condition; the Black one is the death line – the line at which the body can no longer function and the purple is _my_ line, the results of my tests plotted on to show my progress, or my regression as is probably more accurate.

Thinking about my hair, I supposed I might have subconsciously thinking about my line. Although that was depressing – I didn't much like the idea that that line defined me.

Particularly in its current state of decline.

The Blue line had a very low gradient and barely appeared to be going downwards, only speeding up at the end. The red line had a much steeper line which crossed the black death line around last year. It was the purple line, however, that captured my interest. It had been going down at a steady rate for all the time it had been recorded (since I was diagnosed at nine) but then the past few weeks it had taken a dramatic dip, like the climax of a rollercoaster, going much steeper than any of the lines on the graph.

"Oh," I muttered quietly measuring the distance with my eyes. "I'm only six inches from death," I joked, "but it took me eleven years to travel that six inches."

"Mary," Nate said his voice sort and full of an underlining emotion. "The gradient it… I mean, I'm so sorry, but once it's sped up, it's not going to slow back down again."

I swallowed. The moisture in my eyes as a knee-jerk reaction, despite the fact that mentally I'd barely even registered what he was saying. Greif auto-pilot, as it was.

"A year and a half then," I decided hollowly, calculating distances, "a year and a half left to live."

He wouldn't meet my eyes.

"That's right isn't it? A year and a half?"

He shook his head.

"L...looking at it now, you may be being a little optimistic, but there's every chance that..." He trailed off. Nate had a habit of always trying to put a positive spin on everything he said. There was no positive now, which meant one thing, and he knew that I knew him well enough to know that. "Look," He forced his voice out, seemingly finding it hard to speak. "I'll measure your progress for a little while longer and then..."

"You'll tell me how long I have left," I finished, as he appeared incapable of finishing it himself. He nodded slowly and we both sat in silence for a few long moments. Both of us wondering exactly what to say.

"I was hoping I wouldn't have to do this for another few years," He said softy.

"So was I," I agreed, letting a single tear roll down my cheek, pulling the black of my mascara with it. I couldn't feel anything. Nate put his arm around me, and I leant against him, needing the comfort.

"How touching," Sirius's voice rang out dryly from the doorway. "But my friends bleeding and you're supposed to be working here. So maybe you could help?" Sirius suggested, waking in followed by the rest of his stupid mates.

Nate sprang up, and pulled back the curtains for a bed for James, who was indeed bleeding –thick red liquid spurting from his nose in all directions like a screwed up fountain.

"What did you do to Lily now?" I asked shakily, amazed at Sirius's ability to walk in at the exact wrong moment. It was now beyond definite that they thought Nate and I were an item; I was here enough and it _was_pretty weird for us to be friends with the age gap and everything.

"He hexed Snape." Remus answered for him, sitting down on the edge of his bed while Nate pulled a potion from the cupboard and handed it to him, stuffing my file back in the rack.

"You should know better by now." I muttered as Sirius gave me the evil eye and gave me some sort of eyebrow gesture which I took to mean, I know you're shagging him. Even though he was completely wrong. Though of course, if Sirius thought of it, it _had_to be right (note the use of sarcasm here). It was ridiculous to think that I'd just found out my life span stretched to less than a year and a half, and I still had to deal with stupid things like Sirius Black and the bloody Marauders.

"Drink this," Nate said handing James a potion. "Now rest here for about half an hour."

The other thing was that Nate still continued to talk to me like he was my best friend (which he was) when the others were around, which I found weird and they interpreted as conformation of their suspicions.

"Come on Mary, think about something else." He told me, while my I tried to hear the conversation through the ears of a Marauder. Then I realised I'd probably never recover, and instead just ignored them, what did they matter anyway? In the grand scheme of things, I'd be dead in two years.

"How's your sister then?" Nate asked and I sighed.

"Which one?" I asked dully. Talking about my family was one of my least favourite topics, and so I generally tried not to think about them where possible. Lily had pretty much gotten used to that by now and Nate was the only one who pressed the issue.

I have two '_sisters_' but neither of them are actually the conventional sister, as one of them isn't even related to me.

"Becky," He answered.

The story of how Becky came to reside in the same house as me for several years of my life is an interesting one. My mother, who had just be diagnosed and told she was dying, panicked and asked if the condition made the sufferer infertile. Little was known about Ephaiyadaphia at this point and so they told her yes, she would not be able to have children. She, with an admirable (or so I think) desire to be a mother went to the adoption agency and picked the child with the most psychological problems to take her home.

Well, that's my version of the story. They didn't actually realise she came with a long list of problems when they adopted her, the dyslexia, dyspraxia, manic depression, OCD, eating disorders and anxiety problems all came later on. Still, I always found her frustrating. As she was six years older than me, (she was three and a half when they adopted her) completely different to me and always in the middle of some complicated breakdown that, really, I should have anticipated.

I was aware that it made me sound heartless, but the truth was that my childhood had been continually filled with horrible incidents and worrying and stress and it was hard to get to the other side of it all without resenting her, just a little. It wasn't like I was mean to her. I just dreaded her coming to visit and occasionally thought uncharitable things about her.

"She's okay I guess, in her last year of uni now."

Nate nodded slowly, probably expecting a more detailed response but I genuinely didn't have anything better to offer than that. "Johnny?" he asked. I shrugged.

I had always liked Johnny better as he was actually related to me, and agreed with me when it came to Becky. Plus, he'd never sparked up arguments and the like between my parents.

He didn't understand why mum didn't just give having kids a go, as they discovered several years later, the condition didn't make you infertile, when I was conceived.

"Ria?" He asked and I shrugged again.

Ria was my adorable little half-sister, who I disliked strongly because she shared the same genes as Karen. That made her unquestionably evil.

Also, she was my replacement for when I'm gone.

"Your dad?"

"Same boring old fart as always." I answered. I'd have thought by now that h knew talking about my sister achieved nothing. Yet he was irritatingly steadfast in his belief that I should make an effort.

"Karen?"

"Still a sadistic bitch, please can we talk about something else?" I asked, before he could reprimand me for being so uncaring. He had a perfectly valid point, but that didn't mean I wanted to be reminded of it.

"Well," He sighed, "What do you want to talk about?"

I shrugged, looking around the room for inspiration, but was greeted by the Marauders still staring at me with their mouths open. Sirius had obviously re-shared with them his theory on Nate and I with his eyebrow-communication thing.

"So when are you getting married?" I asked in an attempt to remind them of Miss Quigley, the mega blonde crazy bitch bombshell who he was engaged to.

"Dunno, I've got other things on my mind," He shrugged, "we're in no rush."

"Like what?" I asked.

"Worrying about you." He answered and I inwardly cringed. Damn.

"Can I go now Mr Peacock?" James asked from his bed. Sirius sent me another eyebrow message which I decided meant _'we need to talk to you right now'_.

"Yeah, sure." Nate said distractedly.

"I'm going too." I said. I was rewarded with an unfathomable expression and a nod. He probably expected me to want some sort of counselling about my suddenly shortened life expectancy, but I hadn't quite worked up a reaction to that yet. For now, dealing with team drama would have to do.

"McDonald," Peter said stiffly, as we headed back up the corridor.

"You know, you guys should stop ending up there so often, he might start thinking you fancy him."

Well, should have probably thought _that_comment through.

They looked at me in disbelief for a moment, and Sirius was just about to say something when I looked at my watch and said "Ooh! Look at the time, must dash..." In a high voice before hurrying away in quite possibly the most suspicious fashion ever.

I am such an idiot, seriously.

Since I have started term this year I have discovered that there are five different types of people: the annoyingly perfect, the annoyingly unstable, the annoyingly knowing, the annoyingly uncaring and the annoying.

There was the first type: the ones who were so _nice_ and _perfect_ and _quiet_ that you just wanted to thump them and tell them that they have no personality and need to have some problems and develop some quirks, or something. These people probably _do_have a variety of problems but would never share them with anybody apart from a selective few (trust me, I used to be this type of person), so all you see is this annoying exterior you can't get underneath. Example of this: Alice and Frank.

The second types were the ones who had so many emotions and thoughts running through their heads that they just _can't_ keep inside. They'll cry at anything, they'll stress, they'll worry and generally be over emotional and oh so happy to share _everything_. You therefore want to punch them and tell them to get a grip. Lily wins the award for the most unstable (I'm not counted in this...). As a couple, Lily and James would be either abysmal or perfect thanks to the fact that they both fell into this category – James with his unnecessary declarations of love to anyone would listen was almost as bad as Lily and her demonstrations of hate. Really, really annoying.

The third were the people who looked at you with that_look_ that told you that they knew exactly what was going on in your head and that they have all the answers. Then you wanted to punch them in the face and tell them they were wrong, arrogant, nosy and they were _annoying_. Example Dumbledore, Nate, Remus, Miss Quigley.

The forth were the _annoyingly_selfish ones who couldn't give a shit about anyone else, or just not me (the important thing). You wanted to jump in front of their face and tell them to pay attention to someone else, anyone else. Just because if they noticed it, life would be so much easier and better than it would have been before. Example: Charlotte, Peter, Rachel, my dad, Johnny, and my eldest 'sister' Becky.

The fifth were the ones who were simply frustrating to be around for no reason. Who just drove you nuts, even if they did everything right. They made you your favourite dinner and they were making too much effort. They made you something you don't like as much and they were being selfish and annoying. Example – Karen. I just wanted to hit her and bang her pretty little head on the table. The fifth sort defied all previous sense of logic.

The most annoying person of all however didn't fit into any of my categories which was, well, _annoying_. Sirius Black was annoyingly perfect due to the way he achieved perfect marks, perfect looks and the perfect air about him without even having to try. He was annoyingly unstable in the way he would go on about how tragic his life was to those who didn't care. How he would get angry quickly and how he was so different with different people. Then he would look at me, and I would swear he knew just what I was thinking and he was telepathically yelling exclamations of amusement. Then he would say something so stupid and selfish I would know he was just being his arrogant self. Then his presence annoyed me to hell just the same.

I was surprised I hadn't hexed anyone yet.

Or bitten someone's head off.

Or had an emotional breakdown in the middle of the hall.

Because life was being so damn _annoying_.

Today was the perfect example; I had woken up early so I could have a shower to find that Charlotte Jones was currently occupying it. She then took a further _thirty five_minutes until she emerged dripping wet and having used all the towels.

Then Lily had come in, angry as hell, about how James had nicked all her make-up claiming she was beautiful without it (Another of his pathetic attempts to boost her self-esteem. Cute, but really annoying). She then asked to borrow mine and I of course had to lend her some, even though I didn't want to.

I was then about to get in the shower when I realised I had no shampoo and conditioner left as Rachel had borrowed it last week and used the entire bottle. Alice kindly offered me her shampoo and conditioner, but I refused because I didn't want _her_ shampoo, I wanted _mine_. The fact that I knew was being petty made me more irritated.

After all that, I'd decided to sod the whole shower thing.

Instead, I went to go and have breakfast, taking a detour to go and see Nate. He asked me how I was and I said great. He gave me a knowing look, as if to say he knew I was still stressed about my results. I then received the same treatment from Remus and Miss Quigley when they asked me if I was okay in Defence against the Dark arts.

I was stuck sitting next to James in Potions, where he spent the whole time badgering me about Lily.

Coming out of Potions I fell over flat on my face, and Peter Pettigrew just walked straight past, stopping only to say 'Hey Mary.'

Frank stopped and helped me pick up my bags, when I really didn't need any help. I was fine picking up my stuff on my own.

All of that just masked the fact that the real reason I was angry was because I was _dying _and it_ wasn't fair. _

Now I was stuck in transfiguration sitting next to Sirius. Professor McGonagall went out ten minutes ago to sort out some misbehaving second years, Sirius looked like he was about to make some comment about me and Nate, so I pulled out the letter from Karen that had been burning a hole in my pocket since just after breakfast.

Anything to ensure that I was distracted.

_Mary,_

_I was devastated when I read your letter, including the details of your drastically worsening 'condition' as you like to call it. Your father is dreadfully upset and sat in your room for hours. Mary, I believe we got off on the wrong foot and I would like to-_

I stopped reading the letter, and briefly scanned the last few lines; it was far too boring to pay complete attention to.

-_improve the bonds between us before-_

_-I offer my condolences that-_

_-Your father is very pleased that you have agreed to babysit Ria in a few weeks-_

_-All my love. Karen._

Same old, same old. I took great satisfaction in ripping the letter down the middle. I couldn't care less if she was talking about wanting to kill herself, or how she ran a naked fun run, it didn't matter to me. _She_ didn't matter to me, and I wish she'd butt out my life. Just leave for a few years, until I died, then I could get things back on track with my family. It was her fault that we didn't get on. She caused this destruction and she should admit that instead of me taking the blame for it.

Did I mention she was annoying?

I'd have thought they'd cut me a little slack cause I was dying, give out a little sympathy, but no. They just said I had a bad attitude and then Karen _pretended _to be nice to make me feel bad about myself as a person.

It didn't work.

I couldn't care less if they think I'm a spoilt brat, a complete bitch or any other bog standard insult.

Yet I still offered to babysit Ria next Hogsmeade trip whilst they went to see a play for some reason, which I am now totally regretting.

Hogsmeade was like the one time I might get out of this place, and believe me, this was one of the last places I'd like to be right now. The other place I'd least like to be was home: well, no, my house because, let's face it, my house was not my home.

Home was meant to make you feel all warm and fuzzy, and welcoming, like you could be yourself. I didn't have that place. I didn't have anyone to be that person with. And I'll die before I get to all that 'finding yourself' crap.

So I'm stuck as being_ this_me. For the rest of my life. And that was just depressing.

The idea of the whole changing thing was to make me a better person, and so I could get close to people and actually have a life before I die. Well, the conclusion of that is definitely _not working_.

"Letter from lover-boy? Telling you he has to break it off because his fiancé is suspicious?" Sirius Black asked. I glared at him.

"Shut it." I said, stuffing the remains of the letter into my pocket. He was not going to read that any time soon. I'd have to burn it, maybe with my number sixteen underwear or something.

"Are you not even going to attempt to do the spell? I wouldn't bother, you'll only fail." Sirius said lazily, turning the rabbit on our table into a hat box with a flick of his wand. "I guess some people are just naturally talented." He said, stretching his legs out and relaxing back on his chair.

Arsehole.

I used to be able to do magic. It was beyond irritating to lose something which more or less defined who you were: I was a witch. And now Sirius thought I was totally thick.

Well I'd _show him_. I pointed my wand at his eyebrows and concentrated really hard as he looked Rachel Moss up and down, trying to catch her eye (most probably because over the holiday she got taller, blonder and prettier. Whereas over summer I became more ill, worse at magic, moodier and more-purple).

Stupid prat. Stupid shallow prat. Thinking he can walk over people like that? Thinking he can, I don't know, make-out with people in a cupboard, forget their name, and then pretend nothing even happened? Well it didn't work on me.

I hated him. I really did. He was so damn infuriating and bloody annoying. Why did he think that he had the right to piss me off? Because he though he was god's gift to women, rather than a more accurate assessment of selfish, big-headed, tosser.

Some dark red sparks flew out my wand.

His eyebrows caught fire.

Rachel turned around and looked at him as though he was on fire seconds (probably because he was) before the situation seemed to become apparent to Sirius himself.

Sirius let out an almost bark of surprised, turned his wand on himself and, in putting out the fire, managed to drench himself.

I burst out laughing: hysterical-crying-your-eyes-out-laughing. My wand fell from my hand and hit the desk, as I struggled to breath due to the laughing and the smoke mixing in the air.

"You…!" Sirius spluttered, looking at me as if I was a psychopath. "Y...You...you just _set my eyebrows on fire_!"

This was the best thing I'd ever done, in my whole life, and would always be the best thing I'd ever done in my whole life.

"You complete nutter!" He was practically spitting fire (though, that would have only made me laugh harder), but I did think he was the tiniest bit impressed.

His eyebrows had singed to nothing. Sirius Black was _without eyebrows._

"Stop laughing!" He ordered, bringing his wand up to point at my throat. "Stop laughing or I'll hex you to next week, McDonald."

I grabbed my wand from the desk and pointed it at him.

"Like you can do anything with that," He said, gesturing to my wand. "Except catch my hair on fire or poke you. Whereas I could do some _actual_damage."

"I have done actual damage!" I said calmly. "I've completely dented your fat ego, and made you look like an alien!"

"Well, you already look like an alien," He retorted, "and I'm still more attractive than you!"

"Oh shut up Black."

"Why should I? Everyone in this place is more interested in what _I_ have to say, than what _you_ have to say."

There is the possibility that I lunged at him, at that point, and began to scream something really colourful and original (I was really, really annoyed), but The only person who gives one shit about you in this place is that nurse, and even he rates his Fiancé way more than you-" He began and for the second time this school year, I lost it and I lunged at him, screaming ridiculous insults (yeah, I lose it pretty quickly, but I was really really really _annoyed_) when a spell hit me in the chest.

I stumbled backwards, my head hit the floor, my concentrated hatred towards him sent another stream of sparks from my wand and his actual hair might have caught fire.

I struggled to stand up, there was some sort of commotion but my brain felt like soup, the stench of burnt hair made it even more difficult to think…and then Sirius was gripping my hand and trying to get me to sit down and I was calling him something not very nice, I think, because then I passed out on his shoulder.

"TWO MEMBERS OF MY OWN HOUSE! DUELLING! I LEFT THE CLASS FOR TWO MINUTES AND I COME BACK TO FIND A GIRL BLEADING ON THE FLOOR AND-"

"She set my hair on fire!" A voice counteracted, slightly devoid of its usual cool. "Isn't that against the law, or something?"

" "She did magic?"

"I didn't burn it off myself." Sirius muttered darkly.

I opened my eyes. The whole world was a little wobbly, but I had worse. It turned out the voices belonged to McGonagall, Nate and Sirius. And Dumbledore was just casually acting as a cool, bearded bystander.

"Your hair looks worse than mine." I muttered, looking at Sirius and feeling my lips twisting into a smile. Sirius, to my surprised, mirror my expression and offered up a nod of support to my comment.

"Wouldn't be so sure."

"I can't see how it would be worse," I commented, looking at Sirius charred hair and big burns on his head.

"Here," Nate said, passing me a mirror with a slight eye roll.

My hair was unbelievably knotty, with big clots of brown blood, which clashed horribly with the purple.

"Oh _that's_attractive," I said before dropping my hand back down to my bed exhausted.

"You tired Maz?" Nate asked.

"Yes!" I muttered sleepily. "What sort of spell did you hit me with Black?"

"It was… just a silencing spell."

"Is that all?" I asked sceptically. "A silencing spell? A silencing spell would not have knocked me out." I said and Dumbledore looked at him carefully.

"Mr Black, is it possible that your emotions could have gotten in the way of that spell, and in your anger, you accidently, cast something much more powerful?"

"No!" He protested. "I only meant to shut her up, so she could calm down for a sec, I was angry, she set my hair on fire! But I wasn't actually going to do anything!"

Dumbledore looked at him carefully.

"I believe you," He said, after a few minutes. "Now, could I have your wand?" He requested and he said some sort of spell that made the wand show the last spells it had done.

First was a levitation spell. Second was a healing spell. Third was the opposite of a silencing spell. Forth was the silencing spell. Fifth was the spell we'd been doing in transfiguration. Then it continued going back and eventually Dumbledore stopped it.

"Mr Black. Would you wait outside for a moment?" he requested. Sirius nodded and exited the room.

"Miss McDonald," he said quietly. "It would seem your condition is considerably worse than we realised even last week. That silencing charm should have, at most, made you step backwards, but you fell over with enough force to cause a serious knock to your head. You need to be more careful." He said and I shrugged.

"How will you explain to Sirius, why the spell was so powerful on me?"

"You will not tell him the truth?" Dumbledore asked and I shook my head manically (which hurt like hell!).

"No way!"

"Well then, you will have to come up with a suitable explanation." He said and I closed my eyes. Surely _he _was supposed to do this? Not me?

He just sent me a twinkly, knowing look and was on his way.

"Miss McDonald?" McGonagall said. "Your duelling was unacceptable, fifty points from Gryffindor," She said, "Oh, and as the next Hogsmeade trip is coming up, you need to get your hair changed to a more appropriate colour." she added before walking out.

"Right," Nate said cheerfully. "How come you hexed the poor sod?" He asked.

"I was irritated."

"Okay Maz, chill out," He said looking at me knowingly. "I'll just let Mr Black in, and then I'll take your blood test."

"Why would you ever want to let him in?" I asked, not wanting to see him at all, because then I may have to explain to him why a silencing spell knocked me out.

_How annoying._

"To treat his burns," he finished and I groaned.

I honestly and truly hated Hogwarts.

Nate fixed me up in a few hours, but insisted I had to stay in bed for the rest of the day. Unfortunately, Sirius also had to stay in bed, which meant the Marauders came to visit him (those guys are like, inseparable) and Lily had come to visit me.

I'll treat you to some simple maths here.

Marauders = Sirius + James + Remus + Peter

Lily + James = Conflict

Sirius + Me = Conflict

Conflict = yelling

Yelling + my head injury = my head hurting a lot

My head hurting a lot + Sirius + conflict + my head injury + yelling = ANNOYED MARY.

"No Potter, I HATE YOU!" Lily's voice screamed (okay, that was a paraphrase of sorts – but she might as well have been yelling it and she was making a lot of noise). I buried my head under my pillow angrily. Another crap day. I needed someone to talk to and I could hardly open up to Nate right now, due to the presence of the Marauders. Anyway, he was all worked up about me dying and kept preaching at me.

'Oh Mary, don't push yourself too hard!'

'Mary, slow down!'

'Mary, stop setting Sirius Black on fire!'

'You know Mary, you're weaker now!'

It would be good to have someone who didn't know about my condition to talk to, but I didn't. Lily was too busy getting angry at James. Charlotte is busy being a bitch. Rachel was busy dotting over Sirius's burns (they were now dating apparently – ridiculous). Alice was busy being nice to everyone somewhere. Remus was busy studying while the mayhem went on around him. James was busy being yelled at... Basically, everyone was busy, and it wasn't like I was that close to them anyway. This left... my family. I sighed.

"Will you pass us a pen and some parchment please?" I asked and when my request had been fulfilled I began to write.

_Hey Johnny,_

_How's my little, and favourite bro?_

_I'm sorry I didn't write sooner, it's been a hectic few weeks, and by hectic I mean terrible._

_You know how I always teased you about not having to do P.E.? Well, now we have to do P.E. the kit is awful; my house has to wear red and gold, tight shorts and see-through top. Not a big fashion statement._

_I've also been doing your type of classes in muggle studies and I feel so sorry for you! Physics? Gosh, it is SOOO boring, and maths? Don't even get me started! Then in my other lessons I've got decidedly worse, I'm losing my magical power, they may chuck me out soon. Also we have to do team building, and I'm partners with this boy._

_I HATE HIM. He's arrogant. He's conceited. He's selfish, big headed, and an all-round arsehole. (You DID NOT learn that word from me) He's been insulting me constantly since the beginning of the year, (cause I kicked him in the balls) and it's really been getting on my nerves._

_In fact, people are generally being annoying here. Though it maybe just me. Already lost my temper twice this year – I burned a boy's hair and eyebrows off and attacked another. Don't laugh, I was really angry. Never mind eh, it won't matter soon enough._

_Also, I don't know if Dad told you, but my blood tests are getting worse, meaning I'm getting much worse._

_I can feel the effects now, I notice myself getting weaker and more tired which can't be good._

_Nate is going to tell me how long I have left soon and I'm terrified._

_Did I tell you Nate's working here now? Well, he is._

_So how's the Muggle School going? Still boring? And more importantly, how's Claire?! (Sorry, I had to ask)_

_I miss you, and dad, Becky and even Ria a little. Not Karen though, never Karen._

_Write back soon, I could do with someone to talk to_

_Mary_

I sighed, re-reading it. I don't think I'd said anything positive in the entire letter, but then nothing positive _had_ happened. I had a flash of inspiration and quickly added _looking forwards to going to Hogsmeade on Saturday_. There still wasn't much positivity, but it would do, I decided, folding it up and putting it in my pocket for when I could go to the Owlery.

In the interest of remaining optimistic (which Nate would approve of ), I decided to concentrate on going to Hogsmeade.

I pushed all my other thoughts to the back of my mind, _let's just concentrate on getting to Saturday_, which I would do. (My blood tests weren't _that_bad yet, I was counting on having a year or more left still, no matter what Nate said, he was just preparing me for the worse.)

Saturday was only four days away. Four days is nothing. Should go like a blink. It's only ninety six hours. Five thousand plus minutes. A number of seconds too large for me to count, but not to surmount. Hardly anything, really.

* * *

><p><em>Updates on this entirely depend on my desire to edit and so, after a nice review on here I wound up finally getting to this chapter but, like I said, this chapter is completed elsewhere and the main reason for uploading this is back up. Saying that, I hope you enjoyed reading it and aren't to disinterested after me being lazy for such a long period of time. Thanks for reading!<em>


End file.
